BuyDomains/Afternic Domain Sales..WTF!!

[Nattydomain]

Ok, I think I had about just enough. Week after week I see the domains that have sold for $1,000 or more via DnJournal. Most I can agree with but each and every week Afternic comes in with sales of names that frankly if were posted here wld not get picked up for $5!

This is kinda a fast post since im at work and cant show examples but my MAIN question is....HOW do they sell these god awful names?

I know they are joined with BuyDomains and other HUGE companies so the marketing dollars are there but at the avg price of $2,588 what can we do to get our names to these "end users"? What marketing do we need to do so instead of having other domainers come look at our names we need those people who are looking for that domain that they want to start their business.

What are your suggestions of outside marketing. (outside as in not to domainers)

 

[JoshuaPz]

If you owned 2 million domain names, you'd also probably get a couple dozen inquiries a day, even if your domains were rather mediocre.

Also, most of BuyDomains' names are more liquid than they appear. Take their BandH.com, for example. At first this domain merely seems like the word 'Band' with another letter attached. But Googling the term BandH reveals quite a large number of potential candidates for BandH.com (i.e. companies names "B And H"). Try this experiment with some of the other names they've sold.

 

[gazzip]

I know they are joined with BuyDomains and other HUGE companies so the marketing dollars are there but at the avg price of $2,588 what can we do to get our names to these "end users"? What marketing do we need to do so instead of having other domainers come look at our names we need those people who are looking for that domain that they want to start their business.

What are your suggestions of outside marketing. (outside as in not to domainers)

You could sign up with BuyDomains and sell your domains on their platform, something I keep meaning to do myself :blink:

They must spend a fair few marketing dollars and I'v seen them advertise in places like Forbes magazine.

...Does Sedo do much advertising ?

.

If you owned 2 million domain names, you'd also probably get a couple dozen inquiries a day, even if your domains were rather mediocre.
.

Good point, they have tons of names for sale



.

 

[DotWeekly]

Sometimes you have to go and Find Your End User.. they will not always come to you. This works for me, and I wrote about it here http://www.dotweekly.com/2009/03/18/domain-sales-marketing-and-finding-an-end-user/ which is on my blog.

Keep in mind that Domain Forum sales are nearly all wholesale prices. Yes, if you contact end users, the price points are WAY different. :D

 

[hawkeye]

A couple of other things you could do like BuyDomains does, is rent an office, hire a bunch of sales people and staff, train them, and get them 'smiling and dialing'!! A one man shop probably wouldn't be able to compete competively with a fully staffed company!!

 

[Nattydomain]

A couple of other things you could do like BuyDomains does, is rent an office, hire a bunch of sales people and staff, train them, and get them 'smiling and dialing'!! A one man shop probably wouldn't be able to compete competively with a fully staffed company!!

Right!....maybe though others can think of avenues to market our names rather again to other domainers. I have tried in small steps to get on fourms of business and such but not hardcore. I feel when we got in this game it was to make money.....you can make money with other domainers but the bread and butter is end users....

 

[PLamson]

All:

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, any domain owner can benefit from NameMedia's domain sales platform simply by listing their names for sale through AfternicDLS and selecting "Expanded Promotion".

"Expanded Promotion" includes representation of your names by the BuyDomains Sales Staff (hours of operation are 7 days per week, 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM US EDT). Additionally, there will be a dedicated Sales Executive assigned to your account to help you strategize on the best way to maximize the resale value of your names.

BuyDomains is also supported by aggressive SMB (end user) targeted advertising promotion, as Gazzip pointed out.

Furthermore, your names will be included in our global Domain Listing Service (DLS) network, which targets business all over the world.

Finally, your names will of course be listed on Afternic.com.

Our sales strategy is failrly simple - by maximizing the promotion of your names to a global business oriented audience, in most cases we are able to generate higher sales prices for your names that other competing sales platforms.

Our 2008 median sales price (not average, as "average" reported prices are distorted by a small number of very high value names) was $1,200. For comparative purposes, our largest competitor's 2008 median sales price was $500.

I hope this helps.

PM me if I can be of further assistance, or feel free to call me on my direct dial at 781 839 2812.

All the best,

Pete Lamson

 

[hawkeye]

@PLamson - And of course, you can do all this for 'how much' commission or charge??

 

[PLamson]

Great question - I should have included in my initial post.

First, An annual AfternicDLS Seller membership is $20.

Second, Afternic offers 2 levels of sales promotion, each with a corresponding revenue share level:

Basic: This includes promotion on Afternic.com exclusively. There is a 10% revenue share on all names sold via our Basic Promotion level.

Expanded: Details on Expanded Promotion are outlined in my previous post. There is a 20% revenue share on all names sold via our Expanded Promotion level.

Pete

 

[Nattydomain]

PLamson---QUESTION:

As pointed out before in a domain blog it seems most of Afternic's sales are from their own library. i have been wih Afternics platform for selling domains not ONCE have I ever got an offer where as offers have come in at the same time I was with Afternic direct from the end user. I understand you having a platform (like sedo) but lets be real, you also have thousands of your own domains in competion and we can not say for sure what happens when a end user calls for a domain.....maybe you could aadvise what would happen in the scenario below........

Caller calls to say he likes the domain Ilovenattydomain.com (of course fake domain) and its listed by a afternic member... Does the sales rep go straight forward and say ok its $1000 OR do they steer the customer to a similar domain say Ilovenatty.com (which lets say Afternic owns) and sell him on the reason why this one is better then his first choice. No matter the price you are selling domains for its quite clear the # of sales coming from you (Afternic) is from your own portfolio and small amount from us little guys

 

[PLamson]

Nattydomain:

Another great question, and one that (as you might expect) we are asked regularly.

NameMedia does not favor our own names over those names listed by our selling members. Our philosophy has always been that if we satisfy the needs of our SMB customers, we would have a winning business model. This means finding the perfect name for our customer's needs without regard to who owns the names. Because only by solving problems and filling needs for paying customers can we have a long term sustainable business - and a domain destination that SMBs will keep revisting as their needs expand.

"OK, Pete, I hear what you are saying, but I'm not buying it".

A few facts on this inevitable follow up question:

1. NameMedia owned names and member listed names are rendered in our search results in the exact same manner. In other words, NameMedia owned names do not receive a higher "weighting" in our internal search engine results than member listed names

2. Our Sales Executives are compensated in an identical manner whether or not they sell a NameMedia owned name or a member listed name. There is no incentive for our Sales Executives to sell NameMedia owned names over member names.

3. With respect to your comment on our reported sales skewing towards NameMedia owned names, the reason for this is that all NameMedia names are promoted using "Expanded Promotion", which is our most effective sales channel. However, less than half of Afternic Members utilize this option, as they wish to minimize their revenue share, which is certainly understandable. The increased liquidity of Expanded Promotion comes at the price of a high revenue share, as we need to reward our internal and external distribution channels.

Lastly, If you are not receiving offers from Afternic, it may be possible that emailed offers are being caught in spam filters. This is especially common for users with gmail/hotmail email addresses (I am not saying this is definitively happening in your case, I am only suggesting it is something you might look into).

I hope this answers your question.

If you would like me to look into your account specifically and make any reccomendations to increase your sales velocity, I would be happy to do so. PM me if you like on this.

All the best,

Pete

 

[garptrader]

Joshua makes a good point that the mere number of domains Buydomains holds will inevitably lead to some random sales. Likewise, many domainers myself included opt out of paying a 20% commission. I suppose we could adjust our pricing slightly to compensate. Or just try the expanded promotion on a select group of domains and see if you generate any additional offers. I have received several offers but only sold two domains via Afternic thus far.

 

[JoshuaPz]

Joshua makes a good point that the mere number of domains Buydomains holds will inevitably lead to some random sales. Likewise, many domainers myself included opt out of paying a 20% commission. I suppose we could adjust our pricing slightly to compensate. Or just try the expanded promotion on a select group of domains and see if you generate any additional offers. I have received several offers but only sold two domains via Afternic thus far.

Frankly, I'm shocked that BuyDomains.com doesn't close even more sales than they do. I own 400 domains and receive roughly 4 inquiries per month, i.e. 1 per 100 domains. If this figure held true for BuyDomains.com's 1.5 million names they would receive 15,000 inquiries per month, or 500 per day. Out of these 500 I would have expected at least 100 to result in sales, but perusing their logs it appears they only lock up ~25 reported sales per day. This in spite of Afternic, bountiful advertising, etc. Assuming BuyDomains.com reports even a mere 50% of their sales, their grand sales total (50/day) is still half the amount I would have expected to ensue from "random inquiries" alone.

 

[Traveler]

Frankly, I'm shocked that BuyDomains.com doesn't close even more sales than they do. I own 400 domains and receive roughly 4 inquiries per month, i.e. 1 per 100 domains. If this figure held true for BuyDomains.com's 1.5 million names they would receive 15,000 inquiries per month, or 500 per day. Out of these 500 I would have expected at least 100 to result in sales, but perusing their logs it appears they only lock up ~25 reported sales per day. This in spite of Afternic, bountiful advertising, etc. Assuming BuyDomains.com reports even a mere 50% of their sales, their grand sales total (50/day) is still half the amount I would have expected to ensue from "random inquiries" alone.

Your 400 names are probably of a much higher caliber then most of them at BuyDomains. Sure they have lots of great names, but they have a lot of real garbage as well.

 

[Nattydomain]

Your 400 names are probably of a much higher caliber then most of them at BuyDomains. Sure they have lots of great names, but they have a lot of real garbage as well.

And some of those garbage domains are the ones listed as sold... my main thing was to find a way to market our names the same way afternic does. More to business or a web devloper and less to an actual domainer

 

[Traveler]

And some of those garbage domains are the ones listed as sold... my main thing was to find a way to market our names the same way afternic does. More to business or a web devloper and less to an actual domainer

I guess PLamson answered that question more or less?

 

[bmugford]

It is simple law of averages. If you have a lot of domains, you will get a lot of offers. Whether that is enough to pay for all the renewals and turn a decent profit who knows.

Just because domains are garbage to a domainer, it means nothing. Even if there is only 1 specific end user who highly values a certain term then it has value.

Brad

 

[domainsusi]

Well - I for one am through with Afternic.

After paying my 20 bucks for years I believe I had 2 or 3 sales back in 2004 when things were hopping.

I am so totally out of it that I was not aware that BuyDomains.com is Afternic. I submitted several keyword paying domains to BuyDomains.com a while ago and I was offered from $10 to $40 each. They have all been renewed since, but frankly - I would rather drop them than to accept such offers.

In addition - the Afternic Bazaar has gone to hell. Bought bazaarbucks and listed a bunch of domains. The initial price did not move for about 2 weeks and were still at the same point a month later.

I just got a notice to renew my 'subscription' - so I guess they do still know who I am.

 

[VisionEdger]

A bit off the topic but how about telling us Mr afternoc why you lowball EVERY domain name you offer to buy?

Seems to me and many others that your firm is an opportunistic venture with no regard for fair market offers when you attempt to buy on your offers for domains.
Simply it looks like Afternic preys on domainers for your own gain with little regard for fair compenstaion.

Its like you are saying take our offer or leave it. We are so big we dont care and we will wear domainers down with low ball bids till a % caves in and sells to you. Nothing like using people for your own gain!

I also have packed it in with the Afternic and all its services.

 

[PLamson]

Good morning everyone –

There are two very good points raised above by Domainsusi and Vision Edger. Let me try and address both.

Before doing so, let share with all of you how our company is structured. NameMedia is the parent company of BuyDomains, Afternic, and a host of online media properties. We offer manage a number of destination "enthusiast" sites, as well as platforms for domain resale, monetization and related support services.

OK – on to the issues raised.

First it is important to understand that selling names to NameMedia is a completely different sales strategy than selling names on Afternic/BuyDomains. These two divestiture channels are designed with very different objectives in mind.

Domain sellers are offered two very different alternatives when considering selling their names to or through NameMedia. The two options offer the trade offs of liquidity vs. value capture.

1. Sale to NameMedia. This offers the benefit of an immediate liquidity event for sellers, however at a wholesale (lower) valuation). Domain sellers looking for instant cash may choose this option. We fully recognize that this option will not achieve the objectives of sellers wishing to receive retail value for their names. There is also not guarantee that NameMedia will have interest in acquiring all names submitted to our Acquisition Team – names must of course also meet NameMedia portfolio objectives (vertical focus, tld, character count, language, etc.).

2. Sales of Your Names via AfternicDLS: This will be your best bet to capture maximum value per name as the names are sold on the retail market to businesses (or “end users”) all over the world, however it will take some time for your names to sell. Essentially, you are trading immediate liquidity for a higher value capture.

A domain seller looking to sell at full retail price (or even close to retail) should select “Option 2” above. Alternatively, a domain seller looking for quick cash (and accepting the valuation tradeoffs’ of this liquidity) might look at Option 1.

So the question to you is – what are your sales goals? Rapid sale and immediate cash – or a longer term sale at a higher value?

Our sales programs are designed to meet both objectives.

I hope this helps clarify things and many thanks for your feedback – it is greatly appreciated.

Pete